Just read an article that Renault is looking to cut down customers in the paddock. Merc won’t increase size beyond 3 teams. Ferrari is a greedy bastard and Cosworth is more like bleh. Do you think BMW can ever make a comeback to F1? I often wondered why manufacturers like VW, Audi, Volvo don’t venture here in F1?

Yep, it’s a real shame there aren’t more big manufacturers competing in F1. I’d like to see Jaguar return, it’s a shame that what was originally their outfit has now won the triple double. Imagine what a coup it would have been for the company if it was still Jaguar (I’m not suggesting that things would have gone the same way if they had remained Jaguar – obviously the availability of Red Bull’s billions has helped them along the way.)

Are the rumours about Porsche making an entry still kicking around? I remember reading about this in a few places.

This is why Audi won’t be joining any time soon:

‘There’s a very good reason why we are not in F1,’ says Wolfgang Ullrich, Audi’s motorsport boss. ‘There’s no relevance to the road. Audi has always been engaged in motorsport that’s relevant to our customers such as rallying and touring cars, which brought quattro, FSI and TFSI to our road cars.

Hey thanks a lot @Jack Lenox for your input. I read the VW Porsche article that you shared, shame how it’s 2013 already and it’s about 17 days till the Aussie GP, haha… and we have a rough idea of all the competing teams. Thanks a lot to @Slr too.

I think it has to do with what the company wants. F1 gives publicity, but in terms of developments and the costs involved, it isn’t really attractive to most manufacturers. I mean, we’ll never see a Renault with clear F1 heritage (except the Espace F1 ! remember that thing ?? it was sweeeeeeeeeet!), they just make Clios and Lagunas… But they won 2 championships, and that surely raised sales or at least enforced the company around the globe.

I guess BMW is just happy to compete directly against Audi and Mercedes in DTMs, and surely at this point Le Mans is a long way ahead of F1 in terms of future priorities.

that said any one can come in to the game plan even if its just providing an enigne for 2014. if f1 is paying surely manafactures would be silly not to have there name on the car. or as an engine supplier and get paid for it.

personally 2014 opens up a mssive door for any team. yes they could opt to use the merc engine which looks to be the best currently.
i dont see honda doing turbos, thats not really there thing, but vw/audi are very familier with turbo technology so i guess you will have to wait and see, but im sure the talk of 2014 will be in the lips most of the year, most likley even from first practice

@Aish well, consdering the costs of F1, and the incredibly difficult competition, logistics, development rate and all, F1 is tough on any new team. Even if BMW bought a team (which seems unlikely), they’ll be a long way behind.

Le Mans is more “free” in terms of development. And any good manufacturer can join and fight up there…

In my opinion manufacturers should and eventually will return. They just don’t need their own team, they should stick to supplying engines. Look at BMW in the early 2000’s, they supplied a fairly succesful Williams team. However, they got greedy and decided they wanted to win championships with their own BMW team, which is far more costly and if they don’t succeed in their goals they’ll want to drop out within a few years. What’s wrong with being the engine supplier of a winning team? Same goes for Mercedes, they supplied McLaren when Hakkinnen won his championships and everyone knew their was a Mercedes engine in the back of that car. However, they decided they wanted their own team and now look at them struggle. Just supply engines!